♪ opening music ♪ ♪ >> Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

It was a busy second week at the Statehouse as Governor Henry McMaster addressed the legislature in his annual State of the State address, and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a controversial congressional redistricting map.

We talked with the League of Women Voters, Lynn Teague about the map and the state's Maayan Schechter joins us to recap the governor's State of the State, but first more from this week.

<Gavin> This week in the Statehouse, all eyes were on Governor Henry McMaster as he gave his fifth State of the State address, which focused on his legislative and budget priorities, but also gave a sharp rebuttal of the Biden administration.

>> Today, South Carolina state government, however, is in the strongest fiscal condition ever.

We have the largest budget surplus, the largest rainy day reserve account balance and the lowest debt in our history.

However, however, South Carolina is facing a new challenge, an unusual challenge the dangerous, irresponsible and sometimes unconstitutional behavior of our own federal government.

President Biden seems to have been about as successful in defending his mandates in court as he has been sending them across the country to the American people.

President Biden and his liberal allies sue to force South Carolina to adopt universal mask mandates in public schools, despite clear constitutional authority to the contrary.

<Gavin> After his address, Charleston Representative Spencer Wetmore gave the Democratic message.

<Spencer> We need real results for South Carolina families, instead of wasting valuable time on fear and division.

It's time to drop the tiresome grandstanding, and remember that we represent all South Carolinians, not just the less than 20% who vote in Republican primaries.

We need to fight for the hard working families of South Carolina.

In other words, the majority of us.

So tonight, I call on my colleagues to reject bitter partisanship extremism, and the harsh rhetoric that comes with it.

<Gavin> Lawmakers return next week to continue work on the budget, the new congressional map and to debate medical marijuana in the Senate.

(applause) <Gavin> Joining me now to discuss the Governor's state of the State address is Maayan Schechter.

She's the politics editor at the State newspaper.

Maayan, thanks for joining us.

>> Thanks so much for having me, Gavin.

<Gavin> So, Maayan, you're at the Statehouse, right now.

But on Wednesday night, the governor was there, as well.

in the joint assembly before lawmakers kind of laying out his proposals, like he does every year in the State of the State address.

You've seen several of these.

Tell me what stood out to you in this address this year.

>> So, I'm sure if the governor was going to give sort of a brief summary and just a few, maybe a couple of words of what his executive budget, or excuse me, his State of the State address, which is largely his executive budget would be bold and transformative.

And that is I think, what we saw in the budget.

There are billions of dollars that are coming into South Carolina that are really already here in both state and federal allotments that the legislature has to spend and so much of what the governor talked about in his State of the State was how the legislature he believes should spend that billions of dollars.

We've heard a lot of conversation about education.

Money is - that millions of dollars is always going to education every year.

So, we heard about teacher pay raises.

We heard about merit pay raises for other state agency employees.

We heard about millions of dollars for transportation, including roads, water and sewer.

We heard about broadband.

We've heard about millions going toward mental health.

So, much of what the governor talked about was really these big, big ticket, big high price policy ideas that I definitely think we'll see flow through the legislature, this year.

>> Yeah, it's all pretty easy to do, to promise and to really, you know, propose all these grand plans when you have billions of dollars to spend, like you said lawmakers are doing that...that's, he kind of gives them the idea says what his priorities are, but...it comes down to lawmakers crafting the budget, which House lawmakers are doing right now.

>> Right, exactly.

As you know, Gavin, the governor gets to propose this spending wish list in January, and I think it's safe to say that maybe unlike some of his predecessors, the governor has a very good relationship with the legislature, which actually goes a very long way in getting some of those priority, wish list items completed.

He has a particularly even better relationship, as you know, with the House, that's where the budget starts.

So, it's very likely, as I mentioned, and as you said that we'll see some of those priorities probably many of those priorities blow through the budget that will go through the House Ways and Means Committee.

<Gavin> Maayan, it's an election year, not just for House members.

but also for the governor himself, running for a second term, he has no Republican challengers.

We saw that potential challenger, John Warren drop out, saying he was not going to run against the governor.

There are two Democrats vying for the nomination to challenge him in November, but you know, in an election year, we - the governor during these speeches, it kind of becomes like a pseudo campaign speech, as well.

When, you know, you have statewide broadcast coverage, radio, TV all across the state, to kind of lay out these, your agenda and talk about how great things have been.

And, you know, rightfully, so.

There have been a lot of accomplishments.

Things are looking up for our state.

Economy's great.

Unemployment's very low, but when it comes down to some other things here, he didn't...mince his word there, too, his words, when he was trying to make some jabs.

You know, at the Democrats, both nationally and locally, kind of tell us what you heard in some of the more partisan parts of his speech.

<Maayan> Right, so just because the governor may not have a high profile challenger in the primary, it's still a handful of months before the primaries.

He is very much still on a primary politicking kind of schedule.

I did not count the number of times that he said Joe Biden's name last night in his speech.

I think I saw a tweet that it may have been around seven, or eight, but he certainly used his State of the State address, his fifth state of the state address to go after the Biden administration, particularly when it came down to the COVID-19 mandates that the Biden administration had hoped the Supreme Court would not reject, but which they did, especially for those employers with 100 or more employees.

<Gavin> Yeah, that was a big, big accomplishment there, too, big victory.

...we heard a lot of stuff talking about, you know, jabbing at some Democratic-run states also hearing about, you know, how the Biden administration was paying people to stay home during the pandemic, which we all know it was because of a pandemic, but also, that money flowed into our coffers, right now.

No one's complaining about that.

So, it's interesting to see that and we have seen the continuous battle back and forth between the administration and getting that accomplished with the Supreme Court, but we also saw some national rhetoric around education, which we know Republicans are really focusing on, especially after the victory in Virginia with Glen Younkin, the Republican there, really cashing in on that, ...critical race there, which we didn't hear about in this speech, but we did hear some, some discussion about, ...about parents getting more involved being correct when it comes to the education process.

Tell us about what he wants to see done, though, with education funding kind of overhauling this.

Is that easier said than done?

It seems like one of the bigger issues that comes with education these days.

<Maayan> Yeah, I don't know if it's like tax reform or ethics reform, but it is definitely going to be a heavy lift.

I mean, it's interesting to me, you know, just a few short years ago, I remember the revenue and fiscal affairs office putting together some kind of new funding formula for education, and then here we are revisiting the exact same thing because they weren't able to get it over the finish line last year.

It's not a sexy topic, and so it's going to be a lot for the legislature to digest, but that's certainly one of the big overhauls that I think the McMaster administration and the governor, as well as his staff, and Statehouse leaders, especially those who are dealing with the budget and education, want to see at least some time, fixed in their lifetime.

Another key portion of his executive budget includes pay raises for teachers around $2,000.

Of course, teachers do not feel that, that is enough, especially when you consider the last couple of years during the COVID 19 pandemic when the teacher shortage continued to skyrocket.

I think I heard a number the other day, over 1000 classrooms did not have full time teachers, and also a lot of students are... excuse me, a lot of school districts are still bouncing between doing kind of hybrid being in class, out of class, so teachers, and those that represent them are definitely lobbying for higher pay raises.

<Gavin> Yeah, and that's something too, a lot of parents getting involved now with education, of course, because they have been at home with, their children who have been doing, you know, virtual schooling, also, you know, maybe staying home because they're sick, things like that over the past two years.

So, a lot more focus on education will be interesting to see, what does make it across the finish line in the next few months here.

But Maayan again, too, you mentioned was just the governor proposing again, a 1% pay...sorry, tax cut over five years for all tax brackets.

Any...chance we might see some movement on this?

Because he has been talking about it for years now.

There's so much money coming to the state.

So, it's clear that maybe there's room to maybe make a cut like this?

<Maayan> Definitely, I think there's, definitely some movement, both in the House and the Senate, and again, as you mentioned, this is a re-election year, especially not only for the governor, but for the House, as well.

So tax cuts will be a very sort of popular thing that lawmakers can go back home to their constituents and tell them that they did before their re-election.

I definitely think that there's an appetite in both chambers to do something about the income tax rate, but yesterday I spoke to a state Senator Sean Bennett, who as you know, it's kind of like the tax guy around the legislature and while he was very supportive of cutting the income tax cap rate from 7% to 6%, he said there's so much more work that needs to be done.

If South Carolina's really going to follow it's tax problems.

It's got to tackle property taxes.

It's got to tackle sales taxes, and...there's a lot of uncertainty whether that actually happens in anybody's short careers or lifetimes, here in the legislature.

<Gavin> Yeah, especially when you're in the second year of a two year session, and a lot of things are coming down to the deadline in May.

So, we'll see where that goes, but one big successful initiative that we did see the governor put forward last year was this workforce scholarship program with the technical colleges across the state, to really get people trained up whether they're in between jobs, if they're looking for work, to get them certified in high demand jobs, whether that's, you know, nursing assistant, truck drivers, just an array of jobs that are very much in demand, and we've heard them wanting to dedicate about $120 million to this program, and again, to really give people, ...scholarships to get in there and get trained up and get a new job and change their lives, essentially, talk about that proposal, and maybe some of these other workforce development proposals, because we've been hearing from lawmakers who are worried about, you know, education, and how that flows into our workforce pipeline, especially when you have all these big businesses relocating to the state.

Are you going to have enough people to work for these businesses?

That's the big question, right now.

>> Right?

Well, it's sort of two prongs, right.

We've seen college tuition at four years colleges skyrocket, which is why the legislature with the governor's backing, have tried very hard to sort of settle and level college tuition.

and one of the things we've seen over the years as they've pushed that has also been to get more people into the technical college system.

It's obviously cheaper.

It's still a great education, and like you said, they're building a pipeline to these businesses.

So, not only does it solve the issue of college tuition, it's also solving the issue of the labor shortage that South Carolina is experiencing, that the nation is experiencing, by having students go through the technical college pipeline and be able to enter into a workforce means that's an automatic job, and a lot of those jobs are pretty well paying, actually.

So it's a...

It is a policy proposal that is being done, I think, nationwide, because people are understanding the issues of skyrocketing college tuition and the labor shortage, as well.

<Gavin> Yeah, we also saw him talk about, you know, boosting some money for nursing schools to help get them to get more nurses in the pipeline.

Also, like you said earlier, teacher pay raises, law...enforcement pay raises, similar things like that, to really...help address a lot of these workforce issues, but Maayan, moving on towards infrastructure, you know, you're talking about colleges, not...having to raise tuition this year, because of the tuition freeze that's been proposed again, but there's hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance, some of that's actually been addressed, in this budget, too, but, talk about some other infrastructure that we're seeing... big money more than a billion dollars for roads and bridges, something I'm sure SCDOT Secretary Christy Hall is very excited to see, especially because we continue to have a shortfall even though we have raised the gas tax, and we'll be fully funded next year.

Even with that there's still a shortfall every year when it comes to roads and bridges and infrastructure.

Is this budget going to fix all that?

<Maayan> You know, it remains to be seen, but there is... billions of dollars that will be flowing to major infrastructure needs, like you mentioned roads, and that's both on the state level and also on the federal level, it should really kick start some of the big highway projects that I'm sure DOT has been really gunning to start, which is included in their 10 year plan.

Beyond that, we're obviously as you mentioned, the governor is spending a lot of money, looking at just other infrastructure things water and sewer, which has been long neglected needs in a lot of areas of the state, particularly in rural areas, and so much of this maintenance is pretty big.

It's been long deferred.

It's been pushed down the line, because the state just hasn't had the I guess, economic windfall, right, to be able to pay for these things.

Now, with the surge of federal dollars, and with the incredibly great economic turn that the state has had in getting those state dollars.

I definitely think we'll probably be seeing a lot more orange cones on the road, and I feel like already I've seen a lot more orange cones on the roads in the last few weeks.

<Gavin> Yeah- watch out for malfunction junction.

They broke ground in November.

Maayan, really quickly you have two minutes left.

I have two questions for you.

I want to ask you about what we didn't hear in the Governor's speech.

...hate crimes and medical marijuana, both of which are on the Senate calendar.

Tell us about that and what's going on with those bills?

<Maayan> Yeah, so as you mentioned hate crimes passed the House.

It has yet to pass the Senate and that is because there are several names.

several lawmakers who are objecting to the legislation.

Honestly, it's very unclear where that bill goes.

There was obviously a huge momentum a lot of push in the last year, but that kind of has hit a standstill and frankly, I'm sure like you, I have not heard a lot of legislators talk about it.

Medical marijuana is entirely different.

That bill is set to go on special order, if Senator Tom Davis has his wish.

Senate Majority Shane Massey has said this bill will get a debate, which is in and of itself huge because this bill, as you know, has not been debated on the floor, ever, at least, not that I can recall.

So, this is a huge deal.

It remains to be seen whether the Senate has enough votes to do it.

There is at least one name that I still know of that is has objected to the legislation, but it seems that this bill will at some point get a debate.

What its future looks like, We don't know.

<Maayan> ...then Maayan, really quick with 30 seconds left, I want to ask you about the Democratic response, we heard from Spencer Wetmore, from Charleston.

It's just what stood out to you really quickly from that response?

<Maayan> Well, I think what stood out the most is sort of like, it kind of embodied the way that Spencer Wetmore entered the legislature in the first place.

She is a Charleston Democrat who won a seat that was long held by Republicans.

She is the really only democratic success story in 2020, because Republicans were able to flip five seats.

...really, what stood out from her speech was kind of an embodiment of her running in the first place.

It was pretty nonpartisan.

She was very complimentary of the governor.

She talked about, you know, settling down the political rhetoric.

But again, this is a primary election year and it's election year in general.

So, I don't know how long that will last.

<Gavin> We'll be catching up with you throughout the session and the year.

Thanks, Maayan Schechter She is the politics editor at the State newspaper.

<Maayan> Thanks so much, Gavin.

<Gavin> Joining me now to discuss congressional redistricting is Lynn Teague.

She's the vice president of issues and action with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.

Lynn, welcome back.

It's always great to see you.

<Lynn> Thank you for having me here.

>> Well, Lynn, since we last spoke on this show, we've seen the House and Senate district maps be approved by their chambers and by the governor.

Now, all eyes are on the congressional maps.

One has been approved by the House one was just approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, this week.

Tell us about what the House approved.

and that's now over in the Senate, of course, and then what we're seeing coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

<Lynn> Sure, actually, what's come out of the House and what Senate Judiciary forwarded to the floor yesterday are fairly similar maps, and the League of Women Voters we're not fans of either one.

<Gavin> Why not?

What's wrong with a mere opinion?

<Lynn> Well, we believe that they treat the Lowcountry very badly.

They treat Richland County very badly.

There is...a split in Richland County caused by continuing sending congressional district 2, sort of, ambling across northern Richland County for really no good reason.

Richland can easily be kept hold.

The League of Women Voters submitted our own map and in that map, Richland is whole in Senate amendment 2, which Senator Harpootlian introduced in committee that map too, keeps Richland whole.

It is not hard to keep Richland whole.

It is also not hard to keep Charleston whole.

We've always known that for the congressional map, for all the maps what's happening in the Lowcountry is especially difficult because that's where the biggest population changes happen.

We've seen massive population growth along the coast, especially in Horry, but also in Charleston and that area, especially in the satellite cities and suburbs around Charleston, and in running down to Hilton Head, and so forth.

At the same time, we've seen a reduced population in the I-95 corridor, basically in that inland area between the foothills and the coast.

...the change has been more or less valid.

So, we knew that just congressional districts 1 and 6, were going to be doing some trade offs, and that six would have to expand to have enough population and 1 would have to contract.

Now, if you assume that we have to live with what we've had before, that constrains you to some degree, but the League tried to not create as radical a change as we see, for example, in Senate amendment 2.

We have changes but they're not that radical, but our map still manages to keep Richland whole, does not cut across the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Northwestern Richland County, which is to us disturbing in some versions of the maps does not break up the Charleston area, and... over and over since hearings began for this Senate in August, I think...people from that area have said we don't want to be so fragmented, but yet the Senate has now put forward puts the entire Charleston Peninsula into CD 6 with Columbia.

<Gavin> Hmmm...100 miles away.

>> Yeah, they're getting them out of the way.

They're getting the Charleston Peninsula out of the way and To be blunt, they're getting a lot of Black voters in North Charleston and adjacent areas out of the way.

And as a consequence, CD 1 as drawn in both the House plan and the plan advanced by Senate Judiciary, has a Black population considerably lower than the general area than the county, Charleston County, Berkeley County, of course, have Black populations considerably over 20%, and we're seeing that cut back to 17%.

<Gavin> Well, then, what's the justification for these maps at this point?

What are people saying?

Why can't they make your maps or you know, other maps that maybe keep these communities together, keep these guidelines intact?

What are they saying that they can't get around, essentially?

<Lynn> Well, first of all, they've said, well, there are people from Beaufort, who want to be in CD 1, and it's hard to draw Beaufort into CD 1 and keep Charleston whole and so forth.

However they've been... overall since August, they've been many more people who've said, "Keep Charleston whole", and there's a bigger argument there.

I think you really can't argue that Mount Pleasant should be in the same congressional district with Beaufort and the Charleston peninsula should be eliminated.

Basically, CD 1 has been competitive.

<Gavin> Yep.

It's flipped back and forth.

And that is a consequence of really the breakdown of population in that area, which is diverse.

It is, it isn't diverse in the odd sense.

It's sometimes used.

Sometimes you see, majority - minority places called diverse.

No, that's homogenous.

The Charleston area and its satellite cities and suburbs are an economic whole, a social whole, and they are genuinely diverse, racially, socially, but they're very tied economically.

We're seeing maps in which parts of the Charleston port are separated from other parts of the Charleston port.

How does that make sense?

How does hopping from Mount Pleasant to James Island by water make sense?

Yes, it's legal.

You can be contiguous by water.

You have to have that because otherwise, how would you give a district to Edisto Island or Daufuskie contiguous by water is legitimate.

But you don't usually use it to skip over an entire peninsula.

And we hear the argument that, "Well... urban areas counties are split elsewhere?

Again, there's no good reason to split, Richland.

Our map shows that Senate amendment 2 shows that - Greenville, it's hard for all without splitting, but <Gavin> Is this just playing gerrymander at this point?

Or is it just really everyone protecting their own interests?

Yeah.

<Lynn> Yeah, that's the word we're coming to here, yes.

It's a designer district to achieve an end, and that's what we're looking at.

Now, there are plenty of rationales but the League map and Senate Amendment 1, - Senate amendment 2, which is now not in consideration, unless Harpootlian brings it up again on the floor.

Both are truer to the basic requirements of the legislative criteria than what we're looking at, moving forward.

<Gavin> So Lynn, right now, we're taping this Thursday morning, the Senate will come in today.

They they might get on to this map at some point today, but likely the big debate will be next week, obviously.

Where do you see that debate going?

Do we expect to see any amendments being proposed like you're mentioning?

Or...just do you think it's going to be a knockdown, drag out fight because in the House, it was pretty, somewhat quick, but they have different rules in the Senate.

So what can we expect to see over there?

<Lynn> We do expect to see amendments offered on the floor in the Senate.

We know that Senator Harpootlian reserved the right to reintroduce Senate amendment 2 when he did not insist on debating it in full judiciary yesterday.

We also expect... that we may see a variant of the League of Women Voters map reappear, but, we don't know.

But it's a good map and there is interest in it.

So that may also be something we can see again, you know, and if people want to see our testimony on this, and maps and so forth, there is material up at the redistricting.sc senate.gov and SC house.gov websites, but there's a lot of material at our League website.

<Gavin> - Yeah, there's plenty - >> at lwv.sc.org >>...Lynn, with about a minute left, I want to ask you, you know, obviously the debate's next week, but we're getting really close to the filing deadline for these congressional races.

We're talking about March we're not far away and then potential lawsuits or lawsuits filed.

How's this all going to work out in your opinion or how we've seen it work out before?

Will we see primaries get pushed back?

Will we see filing get pushed back?

What do you expect in less than a minute.

<Lynn> I expect to see filing and primaries get pushed back.

I don't know that for sure, but that is my expectation.

We know that there is already litigation on the House map.

Now the Senate map for the Senate was not a terrible map.

It's not a bad map.

And nobody so far has filed objections.

There are some concerns the League had about it, but basically an okay map.

The House map is not, and so that has already been put into litigation by the ACLU and the NAACP, and if the congressional map goes through as proposed in Senate Amendment 1 or the map the House adopted, I would fully expect those to be in litigation, as well, and normally this does push back filing, push back primaries, the primaries could be as late as sometime in August.

<Gavin> Wow, instead of June!

A lot to watch for.

We'll be watching with you there, Lynn, especially next week when that bill comes up for debate in the Senate.

...that's Lynn Teague.

She's the vice president of...issues and action with the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.

Thanks, Lynn.

>> Thank you.

<Gavin> To stay up to date with the latest news throughout the week.

Check out the South Carolina Lede It's a podcast that I host twice a week that you can find on South Carolina public radio.org or wherever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina ♪ closing music ♪ ♪